Blackwell's Homecoming (Blackwell's Adventures Book 3)

by V. E. Ulett

  Aloka stepped out into the full force of the elements and shouted out, “All hands to make sail.”

  Captain Blackwell came up from below, having convinced the regents to take refuge in the sloop’s cabin. He might be as old as they, he was in fact older than Ka‘ahumanu, but he’d spent his life on the deck of a ship in all weathers.

  “An oil skin would not be unwelcome, however,” he said, as though he’d spoken his thoughts aloud.

  Aloka looked at him, surprised that he was clinging to a stanchion on the quarterdeck beside him. Captain Blackwell’s heart went out to him. How he should like to see the youthful cheer again, rather than the pain and grief that had settled on his face of late.

  “Kimo!” Aloka called to the young man now serving as steward. “Fetch an oiled cloak for Captain Blackwell. We do have them, you know, primitive though we are.”

  Captain Blackwell was glad to see the ghost of a smile cross Aloka’s face. He nodded at the crew on deck, all wearing ponchos of tapa cloth rubbed with animal fat.

  “They don’t smell nice, to be sure,” Aloka continued, as Kimo arrived with a cloak, “but you shall not mind it.”

  When Kimo left them alone on the starboard side of the quarterdeck, Aloka turned to Captain Blackwell and his face crumpled. “Oh, father!”

  Captain Blackwell reached out a hand and patted Aloka’s shoulder, grasped his arm. After a time, he said, “Easy there, son. I should wonder about you did you not feel as you do, though Kaumuarii was an evil sod.”

  Aloka rubbed a hand over his face. A useless gesture, for the rain immediately wet it again. “Thank you, father. I wish you was safely ashore or on your ship with the dear Ma’am. Yet I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “You’d have lived through it, son, all the same.”

  Aloka shook his head, sniffling. “Not the same. No. But I can be grateful you are aboard for I am short a quartermaster. Getting back into Honolulu, if we can do it at all, shall be a near run thing.”

  Across the grey heaving sea, through a break in the squalls of rain, they caught a flash of white topsails. “The Blonde,” they both said at once.

  Aloka’s mentioning the dear Ma’am, as he always called Mercedes, turned Captain Blackwell’s thoughts in that direction. He hoped she was snug and safe in the house upcountry.

  As though reading his thoughts, Aloka said, “I hope Emma don’t stay in the cottage, so damned close to shore, and goes upcountry to your place.”

  “Amen to that, son.”

  Emma had reached the house upcountry before things went sideways. She and Mercedes were huddled together in the main room of the new house. Much as she’d wanted to stay near the quay to meet Aloka on his return, Emma had not liked the look of the harbor in Honolulu. There were many ships in port, and an odd swelling of the sea had already caused several merchant ships to drag their anchors. As she left the cottage, Emma saw her father’s ship Albion struggling to unmoor and set sail. Captain Bowles, she knew, would have hesitated to the last minute, in order that the ship should not quit the port without her captain. That helped decide her, and Emma ran to her parents’ house with the wind pushing her along. She and Mercedes could hear tremendous crashes outside, the roar of the wind, and saw the trunks and fronds of coconut trees flying past the window openings.

  “Dear god, I wish there had been time to ship deadlights,” Emma said.

  The wind was howling through the house, part of which had no roof.

  “I wish we had deadlights to ship. Oh, how I hope your father and Aloka...”

  “So do I, Mama.”

  And then they both screamed and clutched one another. The new roof was torn off and carried away out of sight. A deluge of rain poured in on them. Emma took Mercedes under her elbows and guided her to a corner of the room. She was careful to stay away from the chimney, remembering the earthquake and the death of Kapihe. They crouched with their arms round each other, already wet down to their small clothes. Emma felt Mercedes shivering.

  “Mama, we can’t stay here like great helpless ninnies in the rain. Oh! I am so vexed with him I could spit.”

  “Why?” Mercedes stammered out between chattering teeth. “And...with who?

  “Aloka, in course, and I shall tell you why. He—”

  “Mercedes! Mercedes Blackwell!”

  Someone was shouting outside, a strong native voice, and then the figure of a large man loomed in the doorway. Emma was surprised when Mercedes began pushing herself to her feet. She put a restraining hand on her mother’s arm.

  The native man strode into the room. “Come away. We go upcountry.” He actually stepped between the two of them, and took her mother’s arm.

  “Sir, I beg your pardon, we shall do no such thing. Unhand my mother, if you please.”

  “Emma, no it’s—”

  Mercedes staggered and would have fallen but for the native man supporting her.

  “Come, daughter, we go upcountry. There is shelter, with the other women and children.”

  Emma clamped her lips shut and took Mercedes’ other arm. It was of the first importance to get her mother out of the weather. She hoped it would not be far. They were slipping in the muddy earth, practically carrying Mercedes between them, in danger every minute from flying debris. They struggled uphill, always uphill, on a path Emma could not discern but which the native man seemed to know perfectly well. He moved swiftly, Mercedes could not keep his pace long. When they were in a dense forest, the wind abating somewhat the farther they went from shore, the native man turned and took Mercedes up in his arms.

  Emma was astonished, even more than when the man entered her parents’ house. What would Papa make of this? Just as quickly she became angry again with the pair of them, father and son.

  “Take my arm,” the native man commanded.

  They wound their way faster along a terraced track in the forest, with the native man carrying Mercedes and Emma clinging to his arm. At last the big man ducked into a cave, one Emma had not distinguished in the black hillside. The ceiling of the cave rose ten feet over their heads, and was deep enough to hold a collection of women, children, and men. They had lit small fires, quite protected from the wind and rain outside, the flames reflected on the black lava rock walls of the cave.

  The native man set Mercedes down on mats amid a group of women. Emma thought she remembered some of them from the maneaba. He spoke in a low voice to the women closest to Mercedes, then moved away toward the entrance of the cave.

  “Who is he, Mama?” Emma whispered.

  “King Kanakoa, you met him before. These are his wives.” Mercedes nodded at the ladies seated round her, and introduced each one. Mercedes knew them all by name, seemed already intimate with them.

  How they managed it Emma could not tell, but the king’s wives kindly produced dry cloaks and short pa‘ū, tapa cloth skirts, for them to wear. Then they were offered a refreshment of poi and coconut milk. Emma was relieved when Mercedes’ shivering and teeth chattering stopped. After they had warmed and dried themselves, and eaten, Mercedes appeared refreshed. Together they moved a little ways apart on the mats. Emma was fashioning a top of one of the pa‘ū, winding it about her breasts like a bandage, when her mother reached out to her. Mercedes put her arms round her and leaned her head on Emma’s shoulder.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” Mercedes said, in that way she had of going straight at a problem.

  “I’ve hardly seen him these last days. We were together all the time on Hawaii, and then we come here and—”

  “He cannot have foreseen the hard duty that awaited him here.”

  “I know. I understand his reasons for being so much away in his ship, and why he has cared so little to be on shore. But it is more than that. He has not wanted to...” Emma glanced at the king’s ladies sitting so near, “...well, you know. He tells me there is no joy in his heart. What if there never is again?”

  “Oh, Emma, that won’t happen. He’s so young, he’ll
recover from this. You will help him. The same way he helped you after...the earthquake.”

  “It’s not the same. He thinks...he is afraid if we have children they may be monsters like George. Or deformed physically, and he shall have to kill them with his own hands. That is what Li‘liah told me men must do. Can you think of a more soul destroying thing, how much more grief can he endure? It would be no wonder if he never wanted to touch me again. And he shall not want for the consolation of other women. Not here.”

  It had all come out in a rush. Her tears fell fast with the confession, and Emma had not finished.

  “And even that is not the worst of it. I am already with child.”

  Her mother’s reaction shocked her: Mercedes smiled.

  “A baby! Oh Emma!” Mercedes kissed her. “I did not think I should live long enough to see your children.”

  “Mama! Have you not been attending? Is there something wrong with you?”

  Emma was instantly ashamed; ashamed, guilty, and aggrieved.

  “I’m afraid there is, my love, and I’m far past the point of wishing to pretend otherwise. Except that it hurts your father so. And you, my love!”

  They clung together for a moment, both crying now and at first unable to speak.

  “I could not even walk here on my own, and should probably have expired but for you and the king. I am happy I shall meet at least one of my grandchildren. You and Aloka have as fair a chance as any of having a healthy child.”

  “I wish it were so. Oh! How I wish I could convince him, and myself, it were so.”

  Mercedes stroked Emma’s hair the way she’d done when she was small. Except now Emma could have held Mercedes on her lap.

  “I am beyond any desire for pretense, Emma, but I find I’m not beyond cowardice.”

  Emma looked at her searchingly. Her mother was the strongest, bravest woman she knew.

  “When you are a mother you have to face things you don’t want to,” Mercedes said, as though to herself, and then she looked directly at Emma. “You have to grow up, my love. You have to believe, with all your heart and soul your child will be healthy, and make it so. You can believe it, Emma. You and Aloka are not related.”

  Mercedes drew a shaky breath. “I was unfaithful when...when...before your father, before James, returned from living with Ata Gege. Aloka’s people.”

  Captain Blackwell’s sojourn in Kauai, Aloka’s birthplace, had always been to her more a thing of family legend than reality. She stared at Mercedes, who compressed her lips with an odd, guilty look.

  “Seven months after James came back to Honolulu, you were born.”

  “Not my father—”

  “He is your father. In the same way Severino Martinez is more my father than Admiral Gambier ever was. Captain Blackwell was there when you were born. It was his service—you know his dreadful wounds—fed and clothed you, so you could grow up secure and privileged at Merton. The only thing he didn’t do was conceive you with me. And your real father, if we must call him that, is a far better man than mine ever thought to be!”

  Mercedes’ breast was heaving after her long impassioned speech. Emma felt the weight of her mother’s words. Still she yearned to know more, questions tumbled over one another in her mind. Hadn’t she a right to know?

  Emma waited until Mercedes was calmer, and then she whispered, “Papa knows then?”

  It occurred to Emma this would explain much in her relationship to her father, which had always had a singularly strained quality.

  “We didn’t speak of it. We don’t speak of it. Infidelity, it’s...different for men.”

  “You mean his bastard was no disgrace to you, but I should have been for him?”

  Mercedes gave her a sudden angry and reproachful look. “Lord, Emma, you vex me so I could spit.”

  They both laughed then and leaned in to touch each other, and felt easier together.

  “My...my real father, as you venture to name him? The one who did conceive me with you, so we make no mistake.”

  Mercedes took her hand, gave it a squeeze. “Kanakoa, my love. The ali‘i ai moku of Oahu. I’m not going to beat about the bush, you are a grown woman, you have a right to know.”

  Emma leaned back against the lava rock forming the sides of the cave, smooth where they sat, pitted and rough elsewhere. There was a time, not long ago, when she would have been pleased to learn she was a princess, the daughter of an exotic king. Hadn’t she once thought Mercedes too fine a woman for Captain Blackwell? Now she was flooded with unexpected emotion.

  A feeling of loss and uncertainty about her place in the world stole over her, the view she held of herself and her kin. There was a growing sense of her father’s, that is, of Captain Blackwell’s goodness to her, and the ungrateful return she’d made him. But far below the surface lived something like relief. She could tell Aloka he need not fear for any child of theirs. A child who would bind them to one another. Emma instantly began to worry whether she could share this with Aloka, for then wouldn’t Captain Blackwell come to know of it. She would be the cause of more pain to her parents.

  “I was weak,” Mercedes said. “Then and now, and I beg you will forgive me. Speak to me, Emma. I could not bear an estrangement, not now, not ever.”

  Mercedes was gasping for breath, and the foremost feeling in Emma’s confused and troubled heart was concern. It was more than that, she felt near panic before her mother’s strong emotion and immediately put her arms round Mercedes.

  “Nothing to forgive, Mama. I would never...I could never...I shall always love you.”

  She patted and soothed, and Mercedes, leaning against her, began breathing easier. Emma wondered what the king’s ladies must make of the pair of them, blubbering away. She suddenly envied them their stout healthy bodies wrapped in copious folds of tapa cloth, their children and grandchildren gathered round them. Emma thought about the mother she’d known growing up, the one also of family legend, who had fought with swords and sailed on ships. Mercedes had fallen asleep in her arms. Emma looked on her now. Small, ill, and fragile, a cave was no fit place for her.

  Near the cave’s mouth Kanakoa’s men came and went, conferring with the king. He turned suddenly toward the group of wives and children and caught Emma’s eye upon him. Kanakoa strode over to them.

  “Kamahameha I has come in. We go to bring our regents ashore.”

  “I’m coming with you!”

  Her declaration woke Mercedes. There was no one to tell Emma her duty, that she mustn't or couldn’t. Kanakoa only regarded her mildly as though to say, why don’t you then.

  “Mama, will you be—”

  “She will be with us,” one of the king’s wives said. Aside, to Emma, she added, “She nursed my daughter once, and did everything she could to save her. Go daughter, go to your man with an easy mind.”

  Mercedes kissed her. “Bring Captain Blackwell and Aloka back with you to fetch me, my love,” she said bravely.

  Emma hugged Mercedes, and Keao the king’s kind wife. She swallowed down her fear and doubt and ran after Kanakoa, already departing with his entourage of men.

  The seas were higher in the approaches to the Bay of Honolulu than Karaimoku, or any of the old hands, had ever seen. Captain Blackwell was forward on the forecastle, gazing through the rain to conn the ship, Aloka remained aft standing beside the helmsman. It was impossible to see the reef for the heavy weather, but Captain Blackwell and most of the native seamen knew the long narrow approach to the harbor intimately. The issue might not be so much avoiding the coral reefs, with that unnatural spring tide beneath them, but collisions with other ships or being run on shore. There was much shipping trapped in Honolulu, and Captain Blackwell looked out anxiously for Albion.

  “Two points a larboard,” Captain Blackwell called aft in a strong voice.

  Looming up in the near distance at the mouth of the bay Captain Blackwell made out through the haze the outline of a ship. At one moment she was hull up, and in the next she was swa
llowed in a trough of sea so great only her topmasts were visible. Kamehameha I was under storm trysail and closely reefed top sails, yet she tore along, great seas coming aboard as her bow dipped. Suddenly the two ships were passing on opposite tacks and Captain Blackwell recognized Albion, with a jury bowsprit, clawing her way out to sea.

  She was plunging and staggering beating to windward, but she was making way. The two ships came near so that for several moments they were almost looking into one another’s faces, and the decks of both vessels erupted in cheers. Captain Bowles and the Albions raised a great huzzah, clearly heard even over the roar of the elements, and answered by the crew of Kamehameha I in a manner that lifted Captain Blackwell’s heart. He willed her on to open sea, relieved that his ship, at least, was being saved by the skill and daring of Captain Bowles and Albion’s crew.

  Expertise and boldness were not enough to save the shipping in Honolulu Bay, where nature and the elements were in control. Kamehameha I came in at such a clip with the wind behind her, she was immediately in danger of grounding on coral in the troughs or collision with other ships. A Russian merchantman, the Mina, disengaged herself from having run on board a German ship, and careered straight for Kamehameha I.

  “Stand clear of the cable!” Aloka roared out.

  Captain Blackwell braced himself, ready to sing out when to let go the anchor, he wanted good holding ground away from the other ships if he could get it. A tremendous crash and impact from aft, and Captain Blackwell was thrown face down on deck. He struggled to his feet.

  “Let go the best bower!” he called.

  He looked aft at the two helmsmen at the wheel as they responded to the order to down helm, their deeply bronzed faces frightened. Captain Blackwell was unsure who gave the order; Aloka was no where in sight. The ship began slewing sideways to the seas. Captain Blackwell wanted to order a sheet anchor readied and a reef let out of the main topsail to keep her head to the wind, but it was not his command.

  He ran aft, and with relief met the lieutenant Maaro giving those very orders. Kamehameha I’s bow was already coming round.